Be aware that as a general guideline, the average chapter should be between 2,000 to 5,000 words. This doesn’t mean you can’t go below or beyond depending on your story needs, but keep your readers’ attention span in mind and remember that chapter length affects pacing.

Because,
I will
always hope
that someday,
you will
be brave
enough
to break
the barriers
that’s been
keeping you
away from
your dreams.
I hope
that someday,
you will be
strong enough
to fight
for your own
genuine
happiness.

Introduce big details of the setting of a scene first, then weave smaller details throughout. Your reader shouldn’t learn that it’s nighttime halfway through the second page, suddenly plunging their visualization into the dark.

Let’s be strangers again. Like we never knew each other, as if we’ve never been lovers. Think of me as someone who doesn’t know you personally. Spill out everything that hurts you. Tell me about your heartbreaks and all the things that suffocating you. I’ll listen to all of the things you’ve done in the past not caring if it will change my perspective or not. Tell me, how it hurts. And how much it pains you. As if you’re talking to someone you thought you’ll never see again. As if you knew your secrets will still be safe. Let us go back to our beginnings. Let us walk towards the start. Let us be unknown to each other once more. Maybe we will fall in love with each other after it all.

So you’re looking through your old work, maybe seeing if you can pick up an idea you tucked away long ago or maybe you just wanted to take a trip down memory lane.

And with every line you read, your shoulders tense, your nose scrunches, and you feel an overwhelming sensation of embarrassment. You cringe.

You can’t help it. These words are so juvenile, so inexperienced. Maybe you laugh at the childish version of yourself who wrote them. But there’s something to be appreciated in that feeling. You cringe at your old words because you’re comparing them to what you can do now. You’ve grown.

Through years, months, maybe just days of keeping at it and honing your craft, you’ve managed to improve yourself and make something, well, less cringe-y.

That feeling is hours upon hours of thought and effort. It’s thousands of words written and erased, and written again. It’s books read and a life experienced. So after the initial discomfort and knee-jerk internal mockery subsides, don’t forget to pat yourself on the back for how far you’ve come.

And in days, months, even years from now when you pick up something you wrote today I hope you cringe.